Let’s take a moment and look at the idealistic, hopeful “promises” (the promise so many still speak of and fight for at least those who haven’t gone “corporate” so to speak) we saw emerge from around 2007 and compare them against the “common reality” we see in many organizations today.
Promise: Organization-wide transparency & openness
Common Reality: Organization-wide monitoring, measuring, judging and manipulating
Promise: B2B and B2C networks
Common Reality: Another sales channel
Promise: Social platforms to make work easier
Common Reality: Social platforms are another layer of work
Promise: Social Leadership
Common Reality: Executive broadcasting
Promise: Online customer communities
Common Reality: Customer service system
Promise: Platform owned by the workforce
Common Reality: Platform owned by IT
Promise: Increased connection for employee community building
Common Reality: Increased connection for expected employee work collaboration
Promise: Make work more human
Common Reality: Make humans work more (always connected is expected)
Of course this is not the truth for all organizations, some are meeting many of the promises but I don’t think that is the norm by a long shot. And this post isn’t meant to be a cry of surrender but rather a call to action. If you see it this way too, we need to be asking – Can we ever reach the true promise of (enterprise) social technology and if so, how?
